Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane is like the electric car: undoubtedly innovative, and unlikely to ever dominate thanks to the system that’s already in place. When Beane was coming up with clever, sabermetric-guided ways to shape his roster, teams with more money simply replicated what he was doing on a bigger scale, and reaped the rewards.

Well, those times are over, and Beane is no longer some guy you associate with Brad Pitt in Moneyball but a risk taker going all in on his hopes of a World Series. Before the trade deadline passed on Thursday, Beane made what’s being considered a true blockbuster deal by acquiring Boston Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester in exchange for strong-armed outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, who made the All-Star team and has won the Home Run Derby two years running. Lester is only under contract until the end of the season, and could absolutely leave once it turns out that small market Oakland isn’t ready to pay for his services; meanwhile, Cespedes is young, on a reasonable contract, and is a Sportscenter highlight machine. But it was pointedly assertive, bolstering what now clearly seems like the best pitching staff in the league. “This was a gutsy and creative move by A’s general manager Billy Beane,” writes Sports on Earth’s Wendy Thurm. “It’s not every day that a first-place team trades a middle-of-the-order power threat to strengthen a rotation.”

If it were that simple, we’d be penciling in the A’s as World Series champs. They’ve won just one series under Beane, however, and have yet to prove that his longform approach to the season can be effective over seven games. (As Beane once famously said, “My s— doesn’t work in the playoffs.”) But Beane was immediately challenged by the Detroit Tigers, who completed their own blockbuster trace for Tampa Bay Rays ace David Price, and even found the time to wag their tail about it. Now, the Tigers have the last three Cy Young winners—a fact despite Justin Verlander’s struggles this season—and could look to once again outduel the A’s in the fall. (It was Detroit that swept Oakland out of the playoffs in the 2006 American League Championship Series, after that sole series win.)

It was a challenging move for the Rays, who adhered to their organizational strategy of carefully grooming a player over the years only to rip him up by his roots. “I’m not a touchy-feely mind reader, but dealing Price certainly seems like the kind of move that will not only hurt the Rays’ roster and playoff chances in the short term, but also risk damaging the psyches of Rays fans and Price’s former teammates,” Jonah Keri writes for Grantland. “This is the razor’s edge on which the tiny-revenue Rays must continually operate, trading away star player after star player while assembling younger and younger talent in the hopes of finding the right window for a playoff run.”

But it also gave us a better rivalry between two elite teams, and a chance for one of baseball’s long celebrated savants to finally win it all. “Want to second guess him? Hey, have at it. He simply does not care what you or I think,” writes Richard Justice for MLB.com. “Beane has been doing this long enough that he trusts his instincts. He’s fearless in that way.” People started driving hybrids, didn’t they? Read More »

When honoring the 2013 World Champion Boston Red Sox at the White House yesterday, President Obama gained chuckles from the audience when he alluded to his beloved Chicago White Sox. Obama was praising Boston slugger David Ortiz and several of his Boston teammates when he said “Love this guy. Even a White Sox fan can appreciate these guys.”

The president is a White Sox fan, get it? That’s why this remark is so hilarious. Well, if you aren’t following this line of humor, then you won’t get the president’s next joke, which was even more cryptic. He closed his remarks with “May the best Sox win.”

A Game 3 that ended with an obstruction call at home plate was followed by a Game 4 whose final out was recorded on a pickoff attempt at first base. If goofy, slightly bewildering convention follows, Game 5 should finish on a balk, followed by an unassisted triple play and the literal reincarnation of Ted Williams’s spirit to top off Game 6 and 7, respectively. (As opposed to the figurative reincarnation in the form of David Ortiz, who’s somehow hitting .727 through four games.) Read More »

Want to make a millennial feel old? St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Michael Wacha might’ve tied the record for most wins obtained by a starter in a single postseason (4), but there’s an even more impressive milestone he reached on his own: He became the first pitcher born in the 1990s to record a World Series win. (That’s more nerve-wracking than seeing any of Will Smith’s kids succeed in anything.) Read More »

You’ll never see so many men and women wearing an opposing team’s jersey as when the Denver Broncos visited the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday night, the first time Peyton Manning had returned to his former team after a string of neck injuries forced him to leap divisions just a year ago. The Broncos have looked like one of the NFL’s best since he arrived and the Colts have rebounded with Andrew Luck, which made this the rare reunion where both sides have done just fine for themselves, like one of those progressive divorced Swedish couples who still get together at Christmas.

If fans were conflicted, the players were less so: Colts owner Jim Irsay did some talking about Manning’s lack of Super Bowls before the game, and some Colts apparently needed a reminder on who they were playing. The result was less melodramatic than surprising, though, as the Colts knocked the Broncos off from the ranks of undefeated teams, overwhelming their previously unchallenged offense by getting to Manning at the right spots as Luck filled in the blanks with an understated yet potent performance. They even got an unlikely highlight from kicker Pat McAfee, who nailed Denver’s Trindon Holliday on a punt return that was nearly taken back for a touchdown. In the end, Manning couldn’t muster a comeback, meaning the home crowd got a win-win situation in being able to cheer for their hero and their team.Read More »

Was the Boston cop out of bounds for cheering in the Red Sox bullpen? Plus, the Sports Retort podcast discusses the rough weekend for Michigan fans, a beef with college-football overtime and 3D movies and we give some love to Carlos Beltran.

The Boston Red Sox celebrate after defeating the Detroit Tigers 6-5 in Game 2 of the ALCS.

It’s been a few years since an honest-to-God Red Sox comeback, but they surely picked the right time. Boston might not have been doomed had they lost Game 2 of the American League Championship Series, though going down 0-2 after two games at home isn’t a good look when about to face a former MVP on the road. But if the Red Sox manage to win the series, the game-tying eighth inning grand slam from David Ortiz will be referred to as the turning point, providing thousands of Bostonians with a new way to say, “I was there when…” Read More »

If you’re attempting to be truly quixotic and/or a little annoying, you could point out that none of the games in the NFL really matter; they won’t dictate foreign policy or help balance your checkbook, and will never be able to explain why you aren’t very good at parallel parking. But in more understandable terms, it is still a little true that the second week of the NFL season isn’t one of the ones that “counts”—it’s early, teams are figuring out where they are and the promise of a 2-0 record isn’t so incredible when you consider it is entirely possible to go 0-14 after that. “All 2-0 teams are not created equal, no matter how hard we try to paint the Broncos, Patriots, and Chiefs with the same broad brush,” writes Sports on Earth’s Mike Tanier.

Even so, some of the games are sure to have repercussions further down the line. It seems unimaginable that the NFC West’s final rankings won’t be affected by Sunday night’s Seattle-San Francisco clash, in which the Seahawks waited out an hour-long weather delay to decisively punk the 49ers in a near shutout. They held Colin Kaepernick to a fraction of his previous week’s yardage, backing it up with the type of gabbiness that is hard to love but easy to respect. Meanwhile, their fans set what must have been a deeply annoying sound record, helping to extend a home undefeated streak that dates back to 2011. If nothing else, the 49ers could be happy that their quarterback kept his eyebrow, giving uncreative Halloween costumes an extra wrinkle. Otherwise, they’ve been outscored 71-19 in their last two games in Seattle. As Sports Illustrated’s Doug Farrar puts it, “It was perhaps the most decisive win of [Pete] Carroll’s career as an NFL head coach—even more so than last season’s 42-13 beatdown of the 49ers in Seattle—precisely because there were parts of the Seahawks’ attack that were questionable, at best.” Part of that questionable attack includes a quarterback who is still learning, but hey, there’s still the other 14 weeks. Read More »

In most years, an August series between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees is a scalper-driven hot ticket carrying strong implications for the American League East; in 2013, with the Yankees lingering in the far back of the playoff hunt, the potential consequences aren’t so dire. But there’s some perverse drama playing out as Alex Rodriguez continues to hold off the gargantuan suspension that commissioner Bud Selig would like him to start serving immediately, with the slugger’s relationship with Yankee management currently in the “we are never ever getting back together” phase. His peers haven’t been shy in expressing their disdain—though they’ve been a tad more articulate than fans—which perhaps led to a testy exchange during Sunday’s game in which Boston’s Ryan Dempster drilled A-Rod’s side with a fastball, leading to Joe Girardi’s ejection for yelling some salty, not-safe-for-work words.

Of course, because Rodriguez is one of the best hitters in baseball history, Dempster’s goonish statement of intent was answered with a sixth-inning home run triggering the scoring burst the Yankees needed to win, and a glacial stare that concluded with an overlong celebration at home plate. It was a bratty, pugnacious and nearly villainous response, cementing A-Rod’s place as a straight-up heel as his saga descends into a world of he-said-she-said legal spin. It was also intensely and fascinatingly fun to watch. “Leave it to Alex Rodriguez to bring at least some of that back, the one guy every sports fan is so unbearably sick of hearing about and reading about and being force-fed opinions about,” Emma Span writes for Sports on Earth. “Even while news was breaking of yet another facet of A-Rod’s involvement in the Biogenesis case, he was taking another Sunday night slog and making it, if nothing else, memorable. Oh, right: This is why everyone cared about him in the first place.” Read More »

The erstwhile upstarts of Major League Baseball’s postseason are long gone, leaving fans with a much more spare and abstract experience revolving around watching good but very familiar teams play good baseball, familiarly. The same seven or so television commercials seem to repeat endlessly on each broadcast, which is even less fun than it sounds. Tim McCarver’s anecdotes seem half as attached to reality and are taking twice as long to tell. But there is very little in terms of baseball fan complaints—even reasonable ones—that can’t be set right by the words “Game 7.” When the San Francisco Giants bombed the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday night, they not only fended off elimination for a second straight game, they set up a final and decisive game in the National League Championship Series. A Game 7 is a Game 7 is a Game 7, and that’s great regardless of the teams involved. Read More »

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Jeremy Gordon is a freelance writer who lives in Chicago. He has written for TheAtlantic.com, MTV and Prefix and occasionally Tumbles and Tweets. The last time he cried was when Steve Bartman dropped the ball.

Jared Diamond writes about sports for The Wall Street Journal. He currently serves as a beat reporter covering the New York Mets and Major League Baseball.

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